Analytical Tools for Assessing the Chemical Safety of Meat and Poultry
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loginMeat and poultry are foods that contain important nutrients like high- biological-value proteins, group B vitamins, minerals and trace elements, and other bioactive compounds. Despite these bene fi ts, the image of these meats for consumers is negative, especially red meats, because of the content of saturated fatty acids, cholesterol, and other substances that may contribute to a higher risk of contracting certain diseases.
In fact, recent metastudies involving large numbers of volunteers suggest a relation between meat consumption or dietary heme and risk of colon cancer (Cross et al. 2010 ; Santarelli et al. 2010 ; Bastide et al. 2011 ) or even cardiovascular diseases and diabetes mellitus (Micha et al. 2010 ) . Diets associated with cooked or cured meats have also shown an incidence of human cancers (Jaksyn et al. 2004 ) . Consumer health and well-being are of outmost importance for international agencies and industry worldwide. This fact has driven relevant food research efforts toward strategies designed to improve the nutritional properties of meat and poultry by reducing the content of unhealthy substances and promoting the presence of other substances with healthy bene fi ts (Toldrá and Reig 2011 ) . In this way, the development of modern analytical technologies linked to epidemiologic studies and research conducted on the safety aspects of food have contributed to the detection of a large number of substances in food at very small amounts. These substances may be quite varied in nature, and their presence may be due to different reasons or causes; sometimes they are deliberately added for increased pro fi tability, while in other cases they are accidentally generated in certain processing conditions. Some of these substances have shown relevant toxic consequences for consumers like carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, or other undesirable effects on human health, and thus they must be controlled to assure consumer safety.
